[kragen]

the reason authors take that deal is the advance; they can pay the bills with the advance while they're writing the book, and in effect the publisher is assuming the risk that the book flops (as almost all books do), in exchange for almost all of the profits if the book blows up. because publishers have more money than authors, they can afford to take on more risk

[iczero]

last time I checked, VCs also worked this way and didn't take 80% of your company

[kragen]

no? how much was your dilution before your first liquidity event? possibly you haven't done a startup at all and so you don't know about liquidation preferences; a down round normally means vcs take 100% of your company